Notable News – December 2018

Here we are on the cusp of another trip around the sun, and we have the opportunity to look forward to what the new year may bring. According to cancer.gov and cdc.gov, statistics found here and here, are encouraging when it comes to cancer survival rates. The number of cancer survivors in the United States is expected to reach 20.3 million by 2026. That’s good news for the 38.4 percent of men and women in the US that will receive a cancer diagnosis at some point in their lifetimes. Of course, surviving cancer can be costly. Expenditures for cancer care, which were $147.3 billion in 2017, are expected to increase in the coming years thanks to factors such as a population that is aging and new and costlier treatments which are implemented as standards of care. While cancer care is expensive, it seems to be effective. The overall cancer death rate has been steadily declining in the US since the 1990s. In fact, from 1991 to 2015, the overall cancer death rate fell 26 percent. According to cdc.gov, by 2020 the cancer death rates are expected to drop the most for prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, female breast cancer, oral cancers, cervical cancers, and melanoma. With the death rate falling and the survivor rate increasing it’s clear that, over the past several years, progress has been made to effectively prevent and treat the disease. Fortunately, it looks like 2019 will follow that trend.

There are two promising cancer treatment developments this month, reports medicalnewstoday.com. The first one helps prevent the spread of cancer after surgery. A spray-on gel being developed could help stop the recurrence and spread of cancer tumors after surgery when it is applied to the surgery site. The gel is full of drugs that activate the immune system to prevent the return of the cancer. Testing done on mice has been promising. It prevented the recurrence of cancer at the surgery site and prevented tumors from forming in other areas of the body. You can find more details about the promising gel here.

The second development is an exciting combination of medications that may prevent tumor growth. A couple of years ago, researchers in Switzerland figured out that by combining metformin, a drug used to treat diabetes, with syrosingopine, a blood pressure drug, they could prevent cancer tumors from growing. The combination of the two drugs kills the cancer cells by cutting off their energy supply. You can learn more about how this dynamic drug duo works together to sock it to cancer here.

There’s also good news regarding breast cancer this month, reports standard.co.uk. This is really good news because it gives hope to women with one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer. There aren’t many treatment options for triple negative breast cancer, but targeted antibody therapies might change that. Triple negative breast cancer does not respond to hormone treatment so patients have to be treated with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. The targeted antibody therapy would activate the patient’s immune system to fight the tumor. More about this exciting and developing treatment can be found here.

Of course, the best news of all comes when the cancer is no longer detectable, and that’s exactly what happened for a Texas girl this month, reports abc7chicago.com. The 11 year old had a rare and inoperable brain tumor, and she went through weeks of radiation. The radiation can stabilize or shrink the tumor and is the only course of treatment, but there is no cure. Inexplicably, the girl’s scans revealed that the tumor was no longer visible. While doctors call this case extraordinary, they say the long-term prognosis has not changed, and the tumor will likely grow back. In the mean time, the family says they prayed for a miracle and got it. More about this remarkable story, and a video, can be found here.

As we ring in 2019, let’s hope for more encouraging research and remarkable stories, and a day when all cancers disappear.